I am writing an app in order to automate the process of connecting an Apple mobile device to a wifi network and downloading configuration profiles to the device. Since it is being automated (by something such as Native Driver), all of the functions need to be controlled by the app itself, not sent to another app such as Settings or Safari.
I am already using Apple80211 private framework to connect to a wifi network as well as UIWebView in place of a browser in order to navigate to a specific webpage. Once I navigate to this webpage, my server will send the mobile device a .mobileconfig file in order to install a configuration profile. I haven't been able to find a clear answer on how to handle this .mobileconfig file once it is sent by the server. I have read in a few different places that UIWebView cannot handle the .mobileconfig file once it is sent. What would be the best way to handle this file when it is sent?
Also, once it is sent, and granted that something can handle the file, is there a way to install the configuration profile programmatically without the need for user input? i.e. are there any public or private frameworks that I can implement in order to install the configuration profile "behind the scenes?"
This app is only ever going to be used for testing purposes, and will only ever live on a handful of devices. Thanks in advance, any help will be much appreciated.
I tried a similar thing to do.
Unfortunately I didn't get it running with the UIWebView, but with switching to the Safari it worked:
Switch to safari, let the user install the config and send him back to your app. Just register to a custom URL Scheme like "yourapp://" and add a link to this URL in the HTML.
Related
I'm working on a project that will need to be inside an iOS app as well as a website. It will need to run inside the app since it will must be accessed without a wireless connection.
Is it possible to run my web files inside the app without using something like phone gap?
What is the web connection for? Is it for user authentication? Is it for parsing data from a website? It really depends what you need an internet connection for, if you need some external data from a website or database then you would need to internally create some stores/sqlite db's to hold the data and sync that data when there is a connection.
If you are just running a client side app that you decided to create in HTML then I'd still use Sencha Touch, then Cordova to get it to compile natively.
You can always "Add to home screen" from Safari, to make it run locally. To do this, just visit the webpage when you have internet then add it to the homepage, it will run fullscreen without an internet connection; it will work fine offline IF AND ONLY IF you don't need to connect for any data.
I want to be able in my app to upload files from my computer(windows,mac...) to the iPhone,so i an looking for a source code in objective-c that open server on iPhone,
but my question is, how i implement an upload from my computer to the device?
Edit
I want to upload the file from a computer that is on the same Network like the device,
something like :
the user will open browser and select a file and it will be upload to the device.
i found CocoaHTTPServer but i really didn't understand how to upload a file to the iPhone with this.
you probably want to upload the file to FTP-server, that shouldn't be a problem.
set up a webservice or json on your server to know what changed, or should be downloaded (depends heavily on your business logic of your app) - it could also be a static textfile
now the problem is how the app knows that there is are new files.
option 1: poll server if user presses a button or on every app start, etc.
option 2: send push notification to your iPhone app, if there are new file.
polling the server would be very easy to implement, compared to sending push notification.
EDIT:
alright i read your edited post. hosting a local webserver on an iphone sounds still weird to me.
another possible solution, that could work for you - if you only want to transfer only a few and rather small files:
enable Document Interaction in your app.
this would allow the user to send the file by mail to your iphone and open the document with your app with the "open in..." dialog .
Is there any good advice on uploading files to the device? I've seen many apps create a http server on 80 or 8080 to upload files. Does that mean I have to implement a server too?
Are there any 3rd-party libraries? (Preferably open-source and non-GPL)
EDIT: I am going to upgrade files in the app for specific devices in a corporate environment, so the ipad pulling files from a central server is also an alternative. But I would have to send messages to these ipads to tell them to fetch those files.
But I would have to send messages to
these ipads to tell them to fetch
those files.
Push Notification Programming Guide
Or mail with custom URL scheme for launching your application.
iOS Application Programming Guide - Implementing Custom URL Schemes
I assume what you want is a kind of automatic update. An app do something by order from server without user's manual operation.
I don't know enterprise-license specific feature of iOS. But I believe there's no such enterprise-specific APIs. And as I know, automatic update is almost impossible. Because,
There is no system-level support for automatic update. (yet?)
So messaging and fetching feature should be implemented in app.
But no app is guaranteed to run in background for long time.
And also user can turn off any app at any time.
There is no way to send message to an app which is not running.
Even you can send, there is no way to address each client form the server.
If your app is running, sending message or commanding them to fetch or do anything is just a simple work. The problem is there is no regular way to force them always keep alive. Even under situations like OS reboot or abnormal termination.
However there is an alternative. Just registering app as VOIP app like Skype. OS does not keep the app running too, but will monitor specific socket port, and will wake your app when the socket receives some message. For more details, see here: http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/iphone/conceptual/iphoneosprogrammingguide/BackgroundExecution/BackgroundExecution.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40007072-CH5-SW15
In AppStore, an app using VOIP for other purpose like automatic update will not be passed, but you have no need to concern about it.
And other way to send message to device without running app is push notification. This is a feature supported in system-level. But this is not designed to commanding app. This is designed to send textual message. So If your app is not running, the message will be displayed to user. However, you can guide the user to start the app by sending push notification.
As a final option, you can request some feature to Apple for enterprise environment. If your company is big enough to get an enterprise license, Apple will consider your feature request seriously.
If you decided to use VOIP method, I'm sorry I can't help you any more. I have no experience of implementing this kind of app. But it should not so hard.
However hard part is server. It definitely require custom server program which keeps TCP/IP connection. Regular HTTP server cannot be used. Because HTTP itself is designed as not to keep TCP/IP connection. You have to build this kind of server yourself from scratch. You'll have to handle lower level TCP/IP transmissions.
There are a few solutions(both of free/commercial) for this kind of server, but none of are popular because this kind of server regularly needs full customization. So there's nothing to re-use or share.
However I believe this is most suitable implementation for your app.
If you can satisfy automatic update only when the app is running, you can archive it by polling server status from the client periodically.
This is easy to implement because you can use regular HTTP servers for this. Client connect and download recent updates from central server periodically. If there is a new update, just fetch and do what you want. And the app is launched, just check the update at first. Prevent all operation until update applied.
This is regular way. Most of applications are built with this method. In this case, you have no need to implement server or hard thing.
However applying speed of update is depend on polling period.
(Edit)
I couldn't care about private APIs. Because your app is not for AppStore, so you can use private API's freely. (This is different thing with jail-breaking. There are so many hidden features by excluded from documentation) I don't know about private APIs, but it's possible there is some API which enable the support for keep-alive of the app.
However, this reverse engineering work is so painful unless you're born to hack.
You may try to use the following open-source in your project:
http://code.google.com/p/cocoahttpserver/
https://github.com/robin/cocoa-web-resource/wiki
Apple has some sample code on their website that details exactly what you're looking for:
http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/samplecode/CocoaHTTPServer/CocoaHTTPServer.zip
So you have a couple options:
You could distribute your app wirelessly within your organization and push new content out as app updates. Apple provides this option to their Enterprise Developers.
Wireless App Distribution
iPhone enables enterprises to securely host and wirelessly distribute in-house apps to employees over Wi-Fi and 3G. Apps can be updated without requiring users to connect to their computers. In-house apps can be hosted on any web server accessible to users. Users simply tap on a URL to install apps wirelessly without needing to connect to their computers.
The alternative is you configure the app to fetch the updated data. You describe adding an HTTP server to the iOS device, but there's no way the server can receive data when the app isn't running. Given your needs, it would probably work better to embed a web client in your app instead.
If I was in your shoes (and option #1 didn't work), I'd use ASIHTTPRequest to check with a server at launch/daily. If there are new updates, the app could then either prompt the user that there are new data files to download, or it could just silently download them in a background thread.
UPDATED: Perhaps I should have been more explicit about how to do #2. You can configure the download so it isn't interrupted when the user quits the app (you don't need to do a Voip hack). Check out the Completing a Finite Length Task in the Background section in the iOS Programming Guide.
There are http server sample codes from Apple and open source community such as cocoahttpserver TouchHTTPD.
You can upload file to the http server on iphone.
Here's a blog and screen-shots about running cocoahttpserver and upload file to iphone.
The Python CGIHTTPServer allows you to create a server in 0 lines of code:
jcomeau#intrepid:~/rentacoder/bin2txt$ python -m CGIHTTPServer
Serving HTTP on 0.0.0.0 port 8000 ...
Actually implementing a script to parse the input and save the file would take a little more effort.
[later]
OK, so forget about that, Apple doesn't allow it. See Local server on iPad for the iPad at least.
I'm pretty sure that due to the Application Sandbox, none of this is possible, but...
I am working on an application that operates on text that the user inputs. Aside from forcing the user to copy and paste from another application or type in text, what other options exist for getting text? To be more specific:
Is there any way to get the user to "pass" an email to my app? I can imagine a hacky solution where I have the user mail it to a server on the Net, and then I expose the mail from a server-side application, but I'd like something a bit more direct.
Is there any way to get to the user's mail inbox without asking them to put in their credentials?
Is there any way to plug-in to Safari, so that I can send web pages "over" to the app? I don't mean a full plugin, which I know is impossible.
I'm trying to think of creative ways to solve this problem of how to get text into my app, so any ideas would help.
From the Iphone SDK Forum: "Apps can't read each others files - but you could use a URL scheme to launch one app from another. Any parameters in the URL would be passed."
It's what my gut was telling me, but i wanted to go verify before saying..officially, no. The Sandbox isolates each program..
You can pass via URL text strings, but that's about it. I haven't seen any app which hacks around this limitation, but that just may be none of them surviving the app submission process.
http://www.iphonedevsdk.com/forum/iphone-sdk-development/21099-sharing-data-between-applications.html
I have gone through following link
http://zachwaugh.com/2009/03/programmatically-retrieving-ip-address-of-iphone/
and I have also tried this one (but this isn't recognized by Apple).
http://appsamuck.com/day4.html
I just want that when user tap on "wifi" button.
Reports stored in documents directory can be accessed by other pc using wifi using the IP that I display on my iPhone application. How is it possible?
In my apps, I use CocoaHTTPServer to get local info into and off of the phone. You run the server and out-of-the-box, it indexes all the files in the documents directory.
To do what you want, you will need to edit the code to return some other kind of data format (xml probably is the easiest) the call this from inside your app to get that data. CocoaHTTPServer easily take POST right out of the box too, so you can post an xml response as well.
After thinking about it, CocoaHTTPServer is best run on the computer side behind the scenes. the iphone can then send info to the computer where handling the code should be easier and you have more options.
I can't point to any specific examples but the way to do this would be the ZeroConf protocol - both the iPhone and PC would have to be on the same network to have this work.